Gignest

It’s a new year (snap) and that means the beta run of Gignest Fayetteville has officially come to a close. Gignest has nearly 100 musicians and fans of local music signed on to the site, 600 friends on Facebook, and 160 followers on Twitter. We think that is more than enough to keep this project going and will proceed to initiate many exciting updates within the next month.

So, what does the conclusion of beta testing mean? After following the usage of Gignest since it’s release in mid July, we have evaluated the necessary steps to make the site more useful and intuitive for users across the board. For starters, we are developing a site wide face-lift equipped with a live feed stream making posting links and media a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. More forums and groups will be added (users are also able to create these on their own). Musicians will additionally be able to upload their music, photographs, set lists, and event calendars. Basically this year is about making Gignest Fayetteville as awesome as possible but we need your help!

The big call 2010:

• Writers: we’re on the hunt for wielders of words. If you have writing chops and enjoy supporting local musicians, Gignest is waiting for your touch! Music snobs definitely  welcomed.

• Designers & Developers: for those of you who would like to get your hands dirty with the innards social media and poke your head underneath the hood of Gignest, we are looking for Fayetteville peeps to help keep the site fresh and tidy. That means you will be assisting in developing new additions to the site from the ground level. Mad scientists with an infinitely deck playlist required.

• Photographers: whether you’re equipped with a Holga (sweet) or one of those fancy digital things, your documentation is needed. Remember that band Underground Muse Project circa 2003? Yeah, they were awesome. Think how awesome it would be if we could locate them in the Gignest Fayetteville photo archive credited to your name? Just throwing that out there. We also need photographers for the “Buzz Notes.” Can’t forget those.

• Musicians: let us remember why Craigslist is totally fin. It is flooded with spammers, overpriced gear, and the site design is prehistoric. We won’t even get started with MySpace. Gignest caters only to Fayetteville. Why? Because this place is chock-full of talent and creating a network amongst like-minded neighbors is what this dojo is all about. Your participation will only make it better. So go ahead. Let’s continue to trade some gear, form new projects, and share our finest jams.

If you are interested in contributing to any of those listed above, or if you have any questions/comments, drop us a line at info@gignest.com

To those of you who have participated and tested out the Gignest stomping grounds, thank you for your support and feedback. Here’s to another exciting year of local music in Fayetteville!

Well, we have to talk shop sometime, I suppose. If you have never used an amp before you might stop reading now before we waste 10 minutes of your life as you attempt to understand these foreign languages and the mystical approaches to the intangible elements we call “amps.” For those of you who have, do we have a treat for you! I recently stumbled upon this article written by guitar virtuoso, and in all honesty, the man with the best tone on the planet, Steve Kimock. He explains in great detail the formula to get the best sound out of your amp. Although Kimock is using a Dumble here, generally speaking this method could be used on any amplifier to milk that sweet, sweet, tone. If you have a few extra moments to spare in your room (I know you do), give this a go and see what you think!

The following article is cited from Steve Kimock’s Official Discussion Group. Enjoy!

OK, how to dial up a Dumble? I do it the same way I dial up ANY amp, which begins by listening to just the amp, not the guitar through the amp.

1. Plug in your guitar, turn the guitar volume off.

2. Turn the amp control off, everything all the way down.

3. Get right down next to the speaker.

4. Open up your post effect master 50-75%. Listen to the amp blow through the speaker, anything?

5. Open up the front master a little bit, listen to the blow.

6. Open up the gain to 1

7. Open up the tone controls to 2 or 3

8. OK, now you should hear something. Hissshhhhpopshhh etc.

9. Rotate the input volume. Listen, you’ll hear when the control starts to respond. At different places around the rotation of the pot, you’ll hear the amp come on.

Most volume controls exhibit similar behavior, but the exact place they start to become active varies with the individual pot, taper, value, and circuit.

The first sweet spot is where the amp goes from nothing at all happening, to a little blow that normally starts at a pretty high frequency and then begins to pick up a little volume and low end. Take note of that orientation of the pot and remind yourself that that setting is a threshold setting, on one side one behavior, on the other side a different behavior. With whatever voltage you get from the output of your guitar, backing off on your right hand touch or digging in should give you a little change in the way the amp responds. See where this is going? We’re looking for settings that exhibit this threshold or touch-sensitive behavior. That first mark on your input volume is going to be almost ridiculously low, but don’t discount it yet. If something is happening there, and the amp is telling you that it is, you can exploit it in combination with the other controls.

So anyway, you get a mark around 1 or 2, or between 8 and 9 o’clock chicken head time if that’s your knob. Keep going. You should hear another change in the blow coming through the speaker at around 10 o’clock chicken head. This is a real sweet spot on the Dumble, and in a very narrow range around this spot are the only good overdrive tones when you stack the gain. Much past that is just fuzz box.

Keep going!

Up around 1 or 2 o’clock will be another location on the pot where if you sweep back and forth a little you will hear the characteristic oooh-waaa of one behavior of the amp above the spot and another below. This is the territory I do the majority of me clean playing in. I can back off with my right hand and be using a wonderful clean sound or dig in and get the amp to sing, not high gain mind you, but two different sounds.

Keep going!

Past 3 o’clock on my amp the sound doesn’t change much but does pick up in volume. Some amps or maybe preamp tubes will actually go into oscillation at this point, and the volume will go down, so pay attention when you get to the higher gain stuff, to check to make sure the control is doing what you think it should.

Now pick anyone of these “threshold” locations and go through the same process with the tone controls. Listen carefully for the blow to change as you work each control through its rotation by itself and in combination with the other controls. You might be surprised what you learn.

This approach will let you know when the amp is “doing something”. Regardless of tube type or guitar, etc… the amp can’t hide from this kind of scrutiny, and it can’t lie to you either, so do it, and center your efforts in those areas where a little voltage swing from your guitar will move the amp around a little.

OK, that having been said, remember that the controls don’t always do what they say they do. Volume adds bass when you turn it up, adds treble when you turn it down, with the bright switch on. Treble adds gain, mids don’t work without bass, deep switches lose gain. Check your bass control! For a lot of stuff, you can just turn it off. Whack your low E and advance the bass control to its first threshold and leave it. That should be plenty. For what it’s worth, Garcia used NO bass, bass zero on his Fender amps. Pointing to the mid-range control, he told me “That’s your bass control”. He was right…

By now you have already heard about First Thursday in downtown Fayetteville (at least I hope you have). Nearly every local publication in Fayetteville is talking about it and tonight it will be happening from 5PM-8PM just off of the downtown Square. First Thursday is a culmination of two exquisite galleries (ddp Gallery and Fayetteville Underground), featuring the work of locally and nationally acclaimed artists. Tonight will be the first evening to also feature local musical talent. Gignest’s own, Marshall Mitchell, will be performing at 5PM in front of the Town Center. Marshall has that cowboy sound you just can’t find anywhere else.  Bring the kids down early for this one!

At 6:30 the seasoned ‘Guta’ will take the stage, compliments of Fayetteville’s Sound Warehouse. Front man, Teddy Sablon, and his cast of stellar musicians have been touring the East Coast for nearly a decade and they now frequent little nest here in Northwest Arkansas. Tonight will feature Teddy Sablon  (guitars and vocals), Christian Mara (drums), and Drew Packard (bass). According to Randy Thomas of Sound Warehouse, Guta has been featured in Billboard and was by ranked number one by Relix Magazine in its 10 Best Kept Secrets list. Sablon described the band as a bit like Paul Simon meets Bob Dylan meets Bob Marley meets The Grateful Dead meets Steely Dan. Sweet!

Opal Fly and gang will be set to perform just before the showing of “War Eagle.” Fire dancers, ukuleles, jazz-gypsy-madness, you all know the drill! If you aren’t able to catch Opal Fly early this evening she will be posting up at the Smoke and Barrel for the late night.

Have you seen “War Eagle” yet? If not, tonight you will have your chance. A personal friend and colleague, Will Churchill, wrote and performed the soundtrack to the film that has been the buzz of the nation. Churchill grew up in Central Arkansas and was a graduate of Hendrix College. Something about his songs just make you want to load up the car and head towards your favorite Arkansas’ swimmin’ hole. The soundtrack is true mastery and recommended to anyone who has not yet watched the film. All of the events at First Thursday are free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

We know how much of a pain it is to hunt down venue booking details; that is why we have taken it upon ourselves to compile this information for you. Introducing the Gignest Fayetteville Venue and Booking Listings. Here you will find pertinent information such as what kind of music to expect from a venue, where the venue is located on a map, and who to contact to get your foot in the door. Your life just got a little bit more easy, G. 

We are working to keep this information accurate as possible. If you know something we don’t regarding the venue and booking details or if your venue is not listed above, e-mail us at info@gignest.com and we will be sure to accommodate the changes. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: William Collins | will@archetypeproductions.org | 479.466.8581

GIGNEST.COM, SOCIAL NETWORK “HARDLY STRICTLY FOR MUSICIANS,” LIVE

Fayetteville, Ark., July 14, 2009 – Heralded by a 2:22 a.m. tweet to @gignest followers and a 2:58 a.m. Facebook invite to existing Gignest friends, www.gignest.com is live with 10 members and growing. Part of the hyperlocal movement that is sweeping Fayetteville with the likes of Local540.com and the Fayetteville Independent Business Alliance, Gignest Fayetteville is a smooth, user-friendly and localized social network with all of the functions of Facebook and based on open-source applications WordPress and BuddyPress.

According to the site’s “How to use Gignest” tutorial, using the site is “as simple and exciting as Arkansas’ homemade pie.” The sign-up process is quick and painless. After confirming one’s email address, a Gignest member has instant access to a dashboard where he/she can upload an avatar and customize a profile, add member tags, join music-centric groups like “Giggin’ for a good cause” or “Gear Swap,” create a blog, add gigs, archive band listings, add friends, send messages or post updates to member “wires” (as opposed to Facebook “walls”).

Regular site features include Gignest daily wire updates on gigs about town and Buzz Notes, video spotlight profiles of local Fayetteville musicians. The inaugural Buzz Note is featured on the site’s home page and documents a shared summer morning with seasoned Fayetteville performer Drew Packard, who has played with outfits like the Claudia Burson Trio, Fayetteville Funk Ensemble, the 1-Oz. Jig and Souled Out and more over the last 8 ½ years. The video features photography by www.mtaylorlong.com and production by Archetype Productions (www.archetypeproductions.org).

Founded by local musician and graphic designer Will Collins (“Will-4-Real” of Hardaway and the Commoners – www.commonersband.com), Gignest.com is completely free and now open for membership. Collins hopes the web site will be a clearinghouse for all things music in Fayetteville, allowing musicians to freely promote their projects as well as network for collaborations, gear swapping, recording, etc.

Answer Gignest’s clarion call to “Dig local music.” Sign up for a free account at http://www.gignest.com to join the newly launched online music community.

Looking to stay up to date with who’s giggin’ in Fayetteville? Not only will you find these updates on the Gignest site, you can also follow Gignest using your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Want to get the latest updates as soon as they become available? Simply subscribe the RSS feed located at the bottom of the Gignest Twitter site (or) click here. Updates will be sent to your e-mail automaticaly!

Hey musicians, Gignest wants to help promote your shows! Be sure to get in touch with us using Facebook or Twitter so we know the next time you’re giggin’.

Photography by: M Taylor Long |  Produced by: Archetype Productions

Gignest was fortunate enough this summer to share a morning with the seasoned Fayetteville performer, Drew Packard. Drew has been gigging in town for the better half of eight years. His genres are anything but limited as he has worked with local musicians such as the Claudia Burson Trio, Fayetteville Funk Ensemble, the 1 Oz. Jig, Pentomino Players, Souled Out, and the Glactic Gutbucket. Drew studied music at the University of Arkansas and is currently teaching and performing full time. You can be sure that he will be gigging at least once a week at our local clubs. Do yourself a favor and check him out!